Week 8: Poor Queer Studies, and, The Reorder of Things

For week 8, please read:

  • Matt Brim, Poor Queer Studies (Intro, ch4; optional reading: ch2)
  • Roderick Ferguson, The Reorder of Things (ch3)

You might consider the following questions:

  1. How does Ferguson understand the administration of “yes” as a new form of racist power exercised in higher education in response to new forms of “no,” including the student resistance movements at CUNY in the late 1960s?
  2. How would you re-title “Poor Queer Studies” to do some different class/race work in your discipline/field? Or a bit more broadly, do you see ways of rethinking ideas in PQS based on your experience in an academic discipline, as a teacher, as a CUNY community member?
  3. Reflect on the centering of ‘mothers’ in chapter 4. How does this connect with the idea of teaching beyond the classroom? How does it connect with what we’ve discussed regarding community vs individualism? I (Katina) am curious to hear what this strategy—centering mothers, specifically—brings up for you in conjunction with your own educational and life trajectories.

Related: You might take a look at the Interference Archive’s online exhibition on student organizing: https://walkout.interferencearchive.org/ — a number of CUNY-related documents are included.